Evaluating opportunities: Step 2. Value Creation - The Offer

While I believe that "repetition can make permanent", I also know that repetition can make for boring ... A key question when considering value creation and "the offer" is : what value are you creating for the customer or the user? In my blog post last week (Tuesday 8th) "What we are buying ..."  I certainly gave that question a bit of air space so in brief - consider what is the customer buying rather than what you are selling. The follow up question might then be - what product or service will deliver what they "want to buy". From a marketing perspective, a prompt question would "what are the benefits" from the point of view of the customer.  Enough said (or read my previous blog!)

I was thinking about this "value creation" challenge from a slightly different perspective last week ... what value do we create for the people that work for us? What am I "buying" when I go to work each day? I use a clip by Guy Kawasaki at the start of many of the courses I teach on. The clip comes from the Standford University Entrepreneurship Corner (http://ecorner.stanford.edu/) a great resource . In this he talks about the need to make meaning in a business (aligned to Step 1 Purpose). To make meaning he argues that we must do one of three things: 1. Increase the quality of life, 2. right a wrong (particularly relevant for social enterprises) or 3. Prevent the end of something good. (http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1171). On reflection, "what I am buying" each day as I go to work, or sit at my desk at home  is the chance to increase the quality of life for both myself and the hopefully the students in my class.  Exactly how I might do this for my students, well that's the next post as Step 3 in the this framework is "the Customer".